LAUSR.org creates dashboard-style pages of related content for over 1.5 million academic articles. Sign Up to like articles & get recommendations!

In silico prediction of T- and B-cell epitopes in PmpD: First step towards to the design of a Chlamydia trachomatis vaccine

Photo by nci from unsplash

Background Chlamydia trachomatis is the most common sexually transmitted bacterial infection globally. Currently, there are no vaccines available despite the efforts made to develop a protective one. Polymorphic membrane protein… Click to show full abstract

Background Chlamydia trachomatis is the most common sexually transmitted bacterial infection globally. Currently, there are no vaccines available despite the efforts made to develop a protective one. Polymorphic membrane protein D (PmpD) is an attractive immunogen candidate as it is conserved among strains and it is target of neutralizing antibodies. However, its high molecular weight and its complex structure make it difficult to handle by recombinant DNA techniques. Our aim is to predict B-cell and T-cell epitopes of PmpD. Method A sequence (Genbank AAK69391.2) having 99–100% identity with various serovars of C. trachomatis was used for predictions. NetMHC and NetMHCII were used for T-cell epitope linked to MHC I or MHC II alleles prediction, respectively. BepiPred predicted linear B-cell epitopes. For three dimensional epitopes, PmpD was homology-modeled by Raptor X. Surface epitopes were predicted on its globular structure using DiscoTope. Results NetMHC predicted 271 T-cell epitopes of 9-12aa with weak affinity, and 70 with strong affinity to MHC I molecules. NetMHCII predicted 2903 T-cell epitopes of 15aa with weak affinity, and 742 with strong affinity to MHC II molecules. Twenty four linear B-cell epitopes were predicted. Raptor X was able to model 91% of the three-dimensional structure whereas 57 residues of discontinuous epitopes were suggested by DiscoTope. Six regions containing B-cell and T-cell epitopes were identified by at least two predictors. Conclusions PmpD has potential B-cell and T-cell epitopes distributed throughout the sequence. Thus, several fragments were identified as valuable candidates for subunit vaccines against C. trachomatis.

Keywords: cell epitopes; affinity; epitopes pmpd; chlamydia trachomatis; cell

Journal Title: Biomedical Journal
Year Published: 2018

Link to full text (if available)


Share on Social Media:                               Sign Up to like & get
recommendations!

Related content

More Information              News              Social Media              Video              Recommended



                Click one of the above tabs to view related content.